No Bottle No Problem

‘’Want to know more about plastic pollution in the ocean? Watch this documentary to understand how your habits are changing our natural resource, the ocean.’’ This documentary, made by a journalist Graig Leeson, was initially a search for the blue whale in its natural habitat. Soon enough, Graig found something much more interesting, or rather disturbing, to document. Our impact on the ocean, the plastic pollution and how this affect marine life became the new focal point of this documentary. He and his team documented 20 places around the world to show to the public how our ocean is being impacted by our way of living. Besides all the disturbing and alarming images , Graig also shows us some of the solutions to make you and other people aware of how little you can do to make a big impact, such as not buying bottled water anymore. A must-watch documentary if you want to find out how easy it is to change your negative impact onto the ocean into a positive one! Is one

"We will promote easy access to tap water on the streets of Europe to reduce demand for bottled water" - European Commission, May 29 2018 Breaking news: plastic bottels, Q-tips, straws, disposable cutlery, coffee cups, balloons, candy wrappers and other throwaway single use plastics that take 5 seconds to produce and 500 years to degrade need to banned, announce the EU this week. The EU is waging war against plastic waste as part of an urgent plan to clean up Europe's act and ensure that every piece of packaging on the continent is reusable or recyclable by 2030. Following China's decision to ban imports of foreign recyclable material, Brussels last Tuesday launched a plastics strategy designed to change minds in Europe, potentially tax damaging behaviour of manufacturers, and modernise plastic production and collection by investing €350m in research.  Most importantly, 9 out of 10 plastic bottles should be separated and collected in the form of deposit

Just re-using your plastic bottles from super markets might not do the trick. Even though I have a reusable bottle made of steel , I sometimes forget it at home. Since I am not a camel, going without water for a day seems pretty tough. Despite my ethical motivations, the thought and need for some water then often lures me to the next supermarket. Generally, I know how bad plastic bottles are, so I justify buying bottled water to myself, by thinking; 'It's not that bad, I'll just use it more than once'. What I know now, is that this doesn't really work. Studies have shown that the plastic used for plastic bottles actually segregates over time, leaving harmful chemicals and particles in the water you drink. That means that even the plastic bottle might be relatively safe and passes health standards for emitting chemicals, after some time and refills, this is not the case anymore. So if I reuse plastic bottles to make up for my tardiness, I actually provok

1. Chemical Leach Plastic isn't just bad for the planet, it's not good for you either. Laced into plastic bottles are chemicals that can seep out if bottles are exposed to heat or sit around for a long time. Some of these chemicals are possible endocrine disruptors. no one knows for sure what the health outcomes are. Do you really want your body to undergo that experiment? 2. Bottled tap water Unfortunately, not all bottled water comes from heavenly fountains of pure crystalline water. Research shows that up to 25% of bottled water is just tap water. So yeah, you're just paying form the privilege to drink... what you would drink anyways. 3. Bottled Hazards Depending on where you live (especially in the US), tap water has to meet all sorts of regulations. Bottled water? Not so much. This lack of oversight means that bottled water can be worse than tap water. However, it has better marketing! 4. No proven benefits Bottled wat

‘’In what year will there be more plastic than fish in the ocean? 2050, 2150 or 2250?'' In the last couple of years, numerous articles arose to reveal the devastating impact of plastic in our oceans. A great amount of these articles focus on the year when there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. One of these articles, from One Green Planet , highlights some of the disturbing facts about plastics in our oceans from The New Plastics Economy report. The following facts are shown, which will give an answer to the question raised on the top of this page. 95 percent of plastic packaging (with an annual value of around $80–120 billion) is lost to the economy after its first use . Only 14 percent of plastic packaging is collected for recycling . When additional costs associated with  sorting and processing   are factored in, only five percent of packaging is retained for subsequent use. Each year, at least  8.8 million ton of plastics  leaked into the ocean

One of the most obvious impacts of plastic bottles is what happens after the water has been consumed Despite recycling infrastructure that exists in order to facilitate the recycling of these bottles, according to the Container Recycling Institute, 80% of plastic water bottles used become garbage that ends up in landfills . That means roughly for every 10 bottles we drink, only two end up in the recycle bin. Considering that approximately 60 million plastic water bottles are used every day in the US, we can assume that nearly 18,834,000,000 end up in the landfill of the US only each year The vast majority of what's found in the sea originates from the land - from sewage, storm drains, waterways, beach and coastal litter, as well as dumping, industrial activities and landfill sites. Compared to plastic in oceans, we are able to more directly manage landfills. On average each bottle takes 400 up to 700 years to decompose . This means the biggest risk of plastic water bottle

In our last post we explained how harmful plastics in bottled water impact our health . Today we will explain what exactly happens in our body if we are in too much contact with plastics. This is important to know, as the chemicals plastic needs to sustain can have a large effect on the human body. These harmful chemicals we talk of are BPA, PBDE or TBBPA. Shockingly, these chemicals have now also been found in us humans. And while they help to make plastic durable, they have a drastically altering effect on our endocrine system . The endocrine system is responsible for managing and transmitting hormones in our body. Seems quite relevant, right? To give an example of how these chemicals work we will take a closer look at BPA. The chemical BPA works similar to the hormone oestrogen . Oestrogen is the female sex hormone necessary to develop the female reproductive system. (Specialists call BPA a Xenoestrogen , because it is a synthetic product which merely imitates h

Would you have ever thought plastic waste, e.g. your own plastic water bottle, would eventually make its way to your “pure and clean” water bottle? Probably not. However, recent research by the World Health Organization has revealed that more than 90% of bottled water contains tiny pieces of plastic. In one bottle of Nestlé Pure Life , the amount of plastic pieces goes up to 10.000 per liter of water. Is tap water any better then? Yes! Although in tap water there’s also an amount of micro plastics present, research has shown that in bottled water there is twice as much. So when continuously using plastic water bottles you contribute to more and more micro plastics in our environment, which will eventually find its way into your bottled water. Stop buying bottled water and start drinking from the tap, not only for your own good, but also for the planet!

Did you know that in the United States, people consume more bottled water than milk or beer? That's right, the average consumer drank over a hundred liters of bottled water a year despite the fact that drinking tap water is safe in over 90% of the USA households. The trend is not limited to just United States. People everywhere consume more and more bottled water. According to research, bottled water is 500-1000 times more expensive than tap water. The crazy thing is that almost half of the bottled water is derived from tap water. You are paying an insane amount of money and wasting time and energy in hauling bottled water to your house, but you get very little in return. Bottled water for the Western world is a scam that was created by big corporations such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Quaker. Leaders in these companies are waging war against tap water because it cuts into their revenue.  Think before giving away your money for a bad cause like bottled water!

‘’Even recyclable bottles will end up in the ocean after being turned into weaker plastic! Stop using bottled water now and get yourself a reusable bottle.’’ One million plastic bottles are purchased every minute around the world. So recyclable water bottles seem like a great idea. No plastic is being wasted: a circular business model that could potentially safe our planet. But is this true? With only 30% of all the water bottles being recycled , it looks like society does not see the point in recycling them. Is it too pricey? Are we unaware of the benefits or just lazy? Actually none of these questions are relevant. The problem with recyclable water bottles is that these bottles are actually not 100% recyclable. A water bottle is not recycled but merely downcycled into a weaker plastic . You will find your water bottle in a second life as a bag, pen or something else. Eventually these products will be thrown away, since this weaker plastic cannot be recycled anymore. Y

On this page you will find what the costs of bottled water are for the environment, social costs and what it does to YOU. The purpose of this blog is to make you think about your own water consumption and set some facts straight.  This is a student-led campaign and it will run until 13 June 2018. Please go ahead and have a look at our posts and learn why you should stop buying bottled water!